The House Budget Committee voted 21-9 yesterday for legislation that would reduce government spending by more than $300 billion over the next decade.

Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, said the measure would eliminate duplicative programs and wasteful spending to head off Pentagon cuts without raising taxes.

“We shouldn’t be taking more from hardworking Americans to fix Washington’s mistakes,” Ryan said at the committee meeting. “We should be solving the problem with structural reforms to our entitlement programs to make them strong and sustainable.”

Democrats criticized the cuts and said they would disproportionately hurt the poor.

“Republicans have a real fairness problem,” said Representative Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, at the committee meeting. “Democrats and Republicans agree on the importance of reducing the deficit, but we have starkly different visions on how to get there.”